Breeding male white rhino arrives at Texas zoo

Bebop, a male white rhino, left, interacts with a female at Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. The staff is excited to have breeding-age rhinos on site. Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via AP

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — An endangered white rhino named Bebop is the newest member of a South Texas zoo, and zookeepers hope he gets along with his new female neighbors.

The 5-year-old Southern white rhino recently joined other endangered white rhinos on display at Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. White rhinos are listed as near threatened, mostly from habitat loss and poaching, on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s List of Endangered Species.

Patrick Burchfield, the zoo’s executive director, told The Brownsville Herald that zoo staff is excited to have breeding-age rhinos on site.

“We have produced two baby white rhinos here at the zoo in the past,” Burchfield said. “We are part of what’s called a species survival program for the white rhino, and we needed to get a breeding male in here in order to breed white rhinos.”

The new rhino arrived in March from the Center for Conservation of Tropical Ungulates in Punta Gorda, Florida, but underwent quarantine before being introduced to the exhibit.

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